


Strawberry-lemon

by stormthedarkcity



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, ice cream vendor au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-24 00:16:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17693936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stormthedarkcity/pseuds/stormthedarkcity
Summary: Maybe it’s the accent, that first gets Alistair’s attention. Antivans aren’t exactly that rare around here, but something in the way this accent curls around a smile makes Alistair’s breath come a bit short.





	Strawberry-lemon

Maybe it’s the accent, that first gets Alistair’s attention. Antivans aren’t exactly that rare around here, but something in the way this accent curls around a smile makes Alistair’s breath come a bit short.

He shakes his head to himself, closing the register and turning towards his next customer. It’s a man so short he has to stand on his tiptoes to see the ice-cream flavours properly, and he tucks a strand of blond hair behind his ear with long fingers, and an effortless sort of confidence that Alistair wishes he possessed. And then he turns his smile (the one in his accent) to him, and asks for a strawberry and lemon in a cone, and Alistair is hit by the fact that this accent, this voice, sound like they _taste_ good.

The man is wearing a thin white shirt that he’s unbuttoned to his navel, and that’s somehow more provocative than if he’d left it entirely open.

 _Blast_ , they’re set up next to the beach, most people are just wandering about in their swimming clothes! But this guy has his shirt carelessly tucked into dark jeans, lines of tattoos curling on dark skin, barely visible under the thin linen and the opening of it, and it captures Alistair’s gaze infinitely more than every bathing suit he’s seen since he started working here.

Not to mention that the very presence of his black jeans screams ‘I can handle the heat very well, and I’m still choosing not to close my shirt’.

“Alistair? Did you hear?” Leliana sounds worried, and Alistair dizzily realises he’s been staring at his customer for a little too long. He can feel Leliana’s eyes on him.

“Yeah!” he says, both to himself and to the rest of his audience. “Strawberry and lemon, in a cone, coming right up!”

When he meets his customer’s eyes, he could swear his grin widens ever-so-slightly, twitching a bit wickedly at the corner. It’s an expression that says too much, or maybe Alistair is the one reading into it. It wouldn’t be the first time. He feels his cheeks heat up.

Putting the ice-cream together is easy, his hands moving with the fluidity of habit, and he soon hands out a perfectly done cone over the counter. It’s lucky the guy already has his money pulled out, though, because he doubts he’d have remembered to ask for payment were it not for that.

There’s someone, with him, a tall woman whose black hair shakes with her head when she makes a joke, and Alistair forgets about her flavour choices as soon as he’s handed her her ice cream.

They sit not far from there, on one of the makeshift tables they put up for the summer. Alistair tries not to stare, he really does, but as soon as he’s not busy with a client, he feels his gaze inevitably attracted to their table, almost like a magnetic pull. He thinks he sees the woman looking at him from the corner of her eye, once, but then a kid waving money in his direction grabs his attention.

And then, it happens. Alistair feels his gaze drift in _his_ direction, inexorably, and when it finally lands there, the guy is looking back at him, ice-cream half way to his mouth. There’s a bit of a challenge in the way his lips quirk up into the faintest of smiles.

His eyes don’t leave Alistair’s. And he slowly, _deliberately_ , brings the cone to his mouth and licks up from the edge of the cone to the swirl at the tip. His tongue is almost as pink as the strawberry ice-cream, and it curls around it, drags along the shape like it’s a practiced move, and something in Alistair breaks.

“Ohmygod”

His forehead makes a muffled thump when it hits his crossed arms on the counter.

Leliana coughs and then giggles at his side. “Oh my, Alistair, that was definitely for you.”

For lack of a better answer, Alistair gurgles. He buries his burning face further into his forearms, wondering faintly if there’s a chance he can make himself completely disappear, if he puts enough conviction into hiding his face.

“He’s laughing, now. He looks quite pleased.” Leliana sounds muffled, as though she’s hiding her mouth behind a hand.

“ _Don’t look at him!_ ” Alistair whispers to her, with such strength in his voice that it breaks on the last word.

Leliana pats his shoulder. “He is quite beautiful, you know. You should be flattered.”

* * *

It’s another half-hour before the flow of clients thins up enough for Alistair to take a break. He removes his apron and hat and shoves them under the counter before pushing open the van door, thanking Leliana for holding the fort.

The light outside is dimmer than it was around noon, but he still shields his eyes as he distractedly looks around him. Quite a lot of kids are out, now that the sun isn’t so high, and they’re running towards the sea without even sparing a glance for the ice-cream van.

The black-haired woman is there, too. The one who was with the strawberry-lemon guy. She’s sitting on a bench on the other side of the square, looking at something on her phone. She’s alone, and Alistair wonders where the other one is. Not that he’s looking for him, of course. It’s a simple curious enquiry. A question, almost a thinking exercise, you see.

“Your ice-creams are quite marvellous, my friend.”

Alistair almost jumps. He swallows back a squeak, although according to the amused sparkle in the blond guy’s eyes, he didn’t do that good a job. He smiles at Alistair, bright and open, but there’s an edge to it, just like the one he had when he’d deliberately licked his ice-cream.

Alistair feels his cheeks heat up at the mere memory of it. The man’s eyes flicker briefly at them, before fixing back onto his eyes.

“My name is Zevran, at your service.”

He does a little bow with that, and for anyone else it might have looked a bit ridiculous, but Alistair’s stomach flips pleasantly when the guy straightens up, a few strands of his hair having come loose. His fingers itch with the need to push them back behind his ears.

“I, uh. I’m Alistair.” He extends his hand, almost mechanically. It feels awkward and wrong, like he’s walked into a ballet wearing muddy boots, but then Zevran grabs his hand so very delicately, brings it up as he bends forwards, and brushes the skin with his lips.

Alistair feels his heart thump wildly in his chest, having abandoned all rhythm. He’s fairly certain that he would be shaking, were it not for the sheer fear of making a fool of himself.

Well. More of a fool, anyway.

He hears the van door opening behind him and Leliana taking a breath, but then she gives a not-so-discreet squeal and the door slams shuts. Alistair closes his eyes.

“Apologies for my forwardness,” Zevran says, not sounding apologetic in the slightest, “but I was hoping to give you this.”

He hands him one of their own napkins. The corner is a little crumpled, so Alistair reflexively flattens it with his thumb. In the middle of the napkin, written in black ball-pen, there’s–

“My phone number,” Zevran says. He tilts his head to the side when Alistair looks back up at him. “Call me, whenever you’re done working, yes?” His smile takes on that _edge_ again as he shamelessly looks Alistair over. “I’d love to get to _know_ you.”

“Yes,” Alistair hears himself say weakly through the buzzing in his ears. He could swear the ground is moving under his feet. Maybe an earthquake? It could be an earthquake.

“Very well! I’ll see you later, then, _Alistair_.” Zevran’s voice curls around his name like he’s tasting it, and Alistair’s fairly certain it’s never sounded so sexy. Zevran shoots him one last sly smile, before turning around and swaying back towards his friend.

_Maker Alistair don’t look at his ass._

Alistair shoves the napkin into his pocket and immediately pats it worriedly, as though it might have disappeared in the last split second. He sighs in relief when it hasn’t.

Well. Dating a good-looking Antivan wasn’t part of his plans for the summer, but he can surely make room for it, right?

**Author's Note:**

> Find this fic on [tumblr](https://stormthedarkcity.tumblr.com/post/182632165293/) and [pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/posts/485023)!


End file.
